Be a Local

The Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance’s Conservation Leadership Institute (CLI) is excited to announce the graduation of their most recent class. To celebrate the team of dedicated individuals’ achievement, the Alliance will be holding a graduation party on the 22nd of June, which will also be the kickoff of the organization’s New Voter Campaign, a project aimed at increasing voter turnout in 2016 among historically underrepresented groups, including people under the age of 35 and Latinos.

The 17 CLI Round 6 participants, who joined the 76 graduates from previous CLI rounds, have been working hard for nine weeks to build teams of ambassadors to talk with their peers, fellow community members, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances about the importance of voting locally and collecting Commit to Vote cards for this election season.

During the nine-week course, the 17 members of the class were given the opportunity to create a network consisting of their peers, fellow community members, friends, family, and acquaintances. Each member of CLI built a team based off of many ambassadors who also acted in a pivotal role, all members working towards the goal of collecting Commit to Vote cards. These Commit to Vote cards are all references to the upcoming elections, each card is, quite simply, a commitment to vote.

In recent elections—2010 through 2014—the youth “vote share” in Teton County (meaning what percentage of total votes come from people under 35) has been much lower than the rest of Wyoming, about half the statewide average. In the 2012 general election, a presidential year, less than 20 percent of all votes in Teton County came from people under 35. But in the 2014 general election, a non-presidential year that still involved important local races, of registered voters for whom we know their age, less than 4 percent of all the votes in Teton County came from people under 35. Seriously, less than 4 percent.

Given these statistics, one can understand the importance of committing to vote; your voice counts.

Regardless of your party affiliation or registration status, we would like to invite you to join us on Wednesday, June 22, at Phil Baux Park from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. for our kickoff party. Honoring the hard work put in by the CLI graduates, the Alliance will be hosting an evening of lawn games, food, and drink. Local musicians ‘The Canyon Kids’ will also be performing for all attendees. Click here for more information.

We look forward to seeing you in the park and at the polls.

You can read more about the importance of voting locally in a recent guest piece from our executive director in the Planet Jackson Hole, found here.